There is no $425,000,000 sitting in Congress for the Blackfeet water compact settlement for selling our water to the state of Montana and the United States Government and for cancelling legitimate Blackfeet allotted land claims settlement of $1.6 billion for robbing 805 individual Blackfeet land allotments and stealing a billion dollars worth of Blackfeet oil reserves. There is no water marketing of allotted or tribal water to global water markets for 25 years by which time the underground water aquifers will be drained from under the Blackfeet allotted and tribal lands by white patent-in-Fee landowners and the state of Montana. It is stupid to believe white people who have robbed and murdered hundreds of our relatives during the allotment period, 1913-1922, for their allotted lands and oil wells, that they would be fair in the treatment of our ignorant tribal council and our free NARF attorney who screamed at us landowners in the water compact meeting, "You people don't own any water rights!" and the man from the BIA yelled at us, "We didn't steal your lands neither!" and chairman Old Person nodded his head and tossed me out of the meeting by his giant security guard. The state of Montana legislators laughed at Earl Old Person's statement that he was waiting for a state travel check to come to Helena to sign the compact and that he was bringing his "one man tribal water department." It was really shameful that such a man was in charge of our future use of water and the compact gives away all of our treaty rights to water our allotted lands. In addition the tribal council agreed to give a "first right of refusal" for the border-whites to take over any water development deals the tribe makes with outside water developers which means the developers will just go around the tribe and drill our water and drain it from under our feet like they did with the billion dollars worth of oil they stole. When you purchase a bottle of water in Town Pump it will not have a Blackfeet trademark on it, the white people have already stole that from us in the water compact. The big water projects will only benefit the tribal council and their families and the third-party Blackfeet who lease tribal and allotted lands for $5 per acre and sub-lease your land for $270 per acre and pocket the money they made on your land and the white man profits $67,000,000 every year by grazing his cattle on our land! When the tribal council looks at tribal members they see an army of low-wage workers they can use to get more money to raise their salaries and to exploit their allotted lands by using the Cobell case to get a foothold in family lands and bundle your family allotment with a 6,000 acre tribal grazing unit and take all the money from leasing it to white ranchers through their third party criminal accomplices. It is a federal felony to steal from tribal or allotted lands or treaty Indians and the Justice Department is charged with prosecuting crimes against Indians. What crimes will come out of the water compact? The tribal council already cancelled our forced patents claims and gave away our water rights to border-whites living on stolen Blackfeet allotted lands in white apartheid territory called Glacier and Pondera counties. We will not "own" our water rights but will have to go to the tribal council for water permits. There are so many bad things in the water compact you may wonder if chief Old Person was blackmailed into signing it, but what excuse does chairman Barnes have for being so dumb? He was selling hammers when elected as a "businessman." Oh! I see he was a big time hammer seller. The water compact is his "baby."
Please vote no on the water compact. Our grandchildren will curse us for believing the council's lies.
Bob Juneau, Blackfeet trust landowner
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